Known household appliances with a control panel provide graphics, for example text or symbols, and a rotatable user interface element, especially a knob, with a pointer which by rotation points to a respective symbol. The combination of the pointer of the knob and the symbol pointed at shows the user which selection of a program and/or a parameter thereof she or he has done. The symbols can relate to different programs or options for a selected program or additional options which can be selected on top of a basic program selection.
It is also known that household appliances have a rotatable control knob and several light elements which are illuminated when the control knob is operated. In some appliances, the symbols have for reasons of usability and aesthetics been replaced with LEDs, while the knob does not provide a pointing symbol anymore. Each LED is associated to a different type of selection, possibly indicated by some graphics or symbol close to it. Every step of the knob then is associated with an LED such that every time the knob is rotated by a step, a new LED is switched on accordingly. The number of steps of the knob therefore equals the number of LEDs.
The US 2014/0131180 A1 discloses an appliance with a control knob assembly with a control knob and a control panel, whereby a plurality of illumination elements is arranged on the control panel.
Disadvantages of known solutions are that if the number of possible selections is few, the user needs to perform big rotational movements with the rotational user interface element, which usually is not very comfortable to do.
Moreover, the rotational user interface element or knob provides a main gateway of usage of the appliance to the user. Therefore, the required handling of the user interface element has an impact on the perception of the user interface element which is projected on the overall handling and quality of the appliance by the user. An uncomfortable or cumbersome operation of a knob can lead to an overall minor quality impression of the whole appliance.